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my notebook so I can show you what a good guest liaison I’m going to be.”
    “It can wait,” Olivia said, carefully ushering her back to the table and motioning for her to sit down. She then reached in her pocket for a third time before sitting down again. “As well as the cottages you’ve already cleaned this morning, before calling you I also checked out the ones you haven’t gotten to yet.” She set some folded money on the table, but left her hand on it. “And when I saw the size of your tips,” she said, tapping the money with her index finger, “I decided I should probably hand-deliver them.” She then unfolded the small wad and tapped the top bill. “It’s a really good thing I know you personally, because another boss, particularly if they happened to believe town gossip, might wonder why a single male guest staying in our most secluded cabin leaves his housekeeper a three-hundred-dollar tip.”
    Julia jumped to her feet with a gasp, even as she grabbed at the sharp pain that spiked through her back. “They’re lies, every one of them! Olivia, I’m not—”
    “I know. I know,” Olivia rushed to say as she also jumped to her feet. She guided Julia back to her chair, then sat down again with a heavy sigh. “Damn, I’m sorry, Julia. That didn’t come out the way I intended.”
    “Clay told everyone I’d slept with half the men at the fraternity house where I’d worked,” Julia said, hating that her voice was shaking, “so he wouldn’t look like a jerk for divorcing me after I spent six years putting him through college.” She set her elbows on the table and hung her head in her hands. “But people would rather believe the worst about someone instead of hearing the truth, especially if it involves the daughter of the town drunk.” She lifted her head. “Clay’s the
only
man I’ve ever slept with. And from where I’m standing, it looks like he’s going to be the last.” She straightened and gestured toward the window looking out over Bottomless. “Not that I wasn’t given plenty of chances the first year I moved home in disgrace, with every Tom, Dick, and Harry figuring I was easy pickings.” She shook her head. “I swear I was pinched and groped more often than those fresh watermelons Ezra gets in at the Trading Post.”
    “I’m sorry,” Olivia said, her own cheeks darkening.
    “No,
I’m
sorry for overreacting just now.” Julia waved at the money on the table. “If I were running Nova Mare and saw those kinds of tips being left to the cleaning lady, I’d be all over her like flypaper.”
    “Well, okay,” Olivia conceded with a wince. “I did think the worst after finding your . . . ah, calling card. But then I found an even larger tip at a family cottage you hadn’t cleaned yet, so I took a nice long look around the ones you’ve already gotten ready for tomorrow’s arrivals. It was then that I started putting the gift shop incident together with your reservation inquiries, as well as the fact that guests were asking for your cottages in particular, and finally realized what you were up to.”
    “The bigger tips are actually a by-product,” Julia said, carefully relaxing back in her chair. “I was just trying to make everyone’s stay memorable so they’d go home and tell their friends that Nova Mare is worth the exorbitant prices you charge.”
    Olivia arched a brow.
    Julia arched a brow back at her. “A one-week stay in your
small
cottages would pay in-state tuition at the University of Maine for an entire semester.”
    Olivia dropped her gaze and smoothed down the front of her fleece. “Our hotel rooms are more reasonably priced,” she murmured. But there was a gleam in her eyes when she lifted her head and shrugged one shoulder. “It’s apparently true that the more you charge for something, the more people simply
have
to have it.” She gestured at the window facing Bottomless just as Julia had. “If they want
quaint
instead of five-star, they can go